Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/199

 BOOK REVIEWS 187

tained ashes and calcined human bones. The type has been known and a few sporadic specimens have been described, but the size of the present collection definitely establishes certain points: notably that the mortuary vessel, instead of being specially made, was an ordinary water or seed storage jar; also, that it was more frequently buried in the cremation pit than carried to a cave or recess. The account of funeral customs given by a Diegueno, as related on pp. 13-19, corroborates the data of DuBois and others on the religious aspects of death and adds several new features, such as the breaking of the burned bones by an old female relative.

The artifact contents of the mortuary vessels described on pp. 36-45 suggest that the Luiseno-Diegueno material culture of early Mission and pre-Caucasian days was not notably richer than the collections and memories of recent years indicate: arts were few and scantily advanced.

As to the pottery of the region, it is becoming more and more clear that this is an almost exact replica, except for some technical and aesthetic inferiority, of that made by the Yuman tribes of the Colorado. Their pottery, in turn, is not an offshoot of ancient or modern Pueblo ware, but very closely linked with that of the Pima and Papago not so much in the modified present condition of the latter but as it was made before Caucasian influences began. This prehistoric ware of the Papago region may have affiliations with Sonora; if it traces back to the Pueblos, the transitions remain to be pointed out. It is interesting that of the large series of vessels on which Mr. Heye's report is based, barely two percent are painted. Among the Yuma and Mohave the majority of pieces are figured. Luiseno-Diegueno ware is therefore a crude provincial and peripheral imitation of the Yuman pottery, which itself is none too eminent for quality.

The author's finding is that the ceramic art among the Diegueno is not an ancient one (p. 22). This conclusion seems warranted; with the reservation that the industry is nevertheless pre-Caucasian, possibly by a number of centuries. A site on the southern edge of a lagoon a mile north of La Jolla is strewn with sherds. Examinations made there by Mrs. S. K. Lothrop proved all the pottery to come from near the surface; although the whole deposit was rather shallow. Nowhere in southern California have there been any accredited reports of potsherds being found at deep levels. This is one of the few matters in which close observation of stratification promises to ba a fruitful method of attack in California archaeology.

At the risk of appearing to carp, it may be mentioned that a Diegueno mortuary olla was mentioned and figured by Waterman (Univ. Calif.

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